March 19, 2009
Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
CONTRACT RELEASE: C09-013
NASA AWARDS CONTRACTS FOR SCIENCE INSTRUMENTS ON SOLAR MISSION
WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected three teams to design and build
science instruments for a proposed European-led solar mission. The
instruments, with a total value of approximately $81 million, are
part of NASA's Living with a Star Program.
The total amount for initial design of the instruments, known as Phase
A, is $1.7 million. Each project will need to go through the normal
key decision point phases in order to be confirmed for continued
funding.
The science teams selected are:
Russell Howard, principal investigator for the Heliospheric Imager
instrument, valued at $29.7 million. The team will be funded through
an inter-agency agreement with the Naval Research Laboratory in
Washington.
Donald Hassler, principal investigator for the Spectral Imaging of the
Coronal Environment instrument, valued at $34 million. The team will
be funded through a cost plus award fee contract with Southwest
Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.
Glenn Mason, co-investigator for the Suprathermal Ion Spectrograph
instrument, valued at $17.3 million. Mason will be funded through a
current NASA contract with the Applied Physics Laboratory in
Columbia, Md.
NASA's Living with a Star Program is designed to understand how and
why the sun varies, how planetary systems respond and the effect on
human space and Earth activities. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Md., manages the program for the agency's Heliophysics
Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov
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